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From Abracadabra to Zombies

22 Nov 2009
I would like to quibble with your notion of scepticism. In
philosophy, pure scepticism is the withholding of belief in
absolutely everything, including the existence of an external
world, let alone God, angels, etc!

reply: "Pure" skepticism? You
might be thinking of Pyrrhonian skepticism and you might be confusing suspension
of judgment with withholding belief. To suspend judgment on the
truth or reality of everything is quite different from
withholding belief. No one could survive for a second without
beliefs. The Pyrrhonian skeptic says we can know nothing not
even that we can know nothing, but he doesn't say we can
exist without beliefs.

Academic skepticism, on the other hand, while emphasizing
suspension of judgment because of the human inability to attain
certainty or absolute knowledge, did not advocate withholding
belief in those cases where the preponderance of the evidence
was on one side rather than the others. Granted, this is a
simplistic division of skeptics, who represent a very broad
array of approaches to knowledge and belief. Still, the idea of
there being a "pure" skepticism is why I wrote my essay
"Why I am not a real (true) skeptic."

You do not represent scepticism.
What you do seem to represent is a metaphysical position known
as materialist reductionism - therefore I think you should
rename your dictionary something along those lines!

reply: I don't try to represent "scepticism,"
and certainly not "pure" skepticism. If I am thought of as
representing anything, I'd like to be thought of as representing
critical thinking or ordinary skepticism. As I note in my entry
on philosophical skepticism:

Philosophical skepticism should
be distinguished from ordinary skepticism, where doubts are
raised against certain beliefs or types of beliefs because the
evidence for the particular belief or type of belief is weak
or lacking. Ordinary skeptics are not credulous or gullible.
They don't take things on trust, but must see the evidence
before believing. Ordinary skeptics doubt the miraculous
claims of religions, the claims of alien abductions, the
claims of psychoanalysis, etc. But they do not necessarily
doubt that certainty or knowledge is possible. Nor do they
doubt these things because of systematic arguments that
undermine all knowledge claims.

I am a materialist and have
produced many arguments for doubting the existence of spirits,
ghosts, gods, and other immaterial beings. However, those
arguments make up only a part of The Skeptic's Dictionary.
I have also produced many arguments against various forms of
quackery that have nothing to do with materialism.

Now, philosophically speaking,
materialist reductionism does have flaws, as do all metaphysical
positions. However, that is another story. I do think however,
that you should not be claiming the mantle of scepticism - that
belongs in truth to philosophers such as David Hume who doubted
even his own existence.

With Regards

Dr Alasdair Broun, PhD
Philosophy, Lancaster University 1986

reply: I think you should read
Hume again, if indeed you've ever read him. Hume was the
greatest of all the skeptical philosophers, in my opinion, but
he did not doubt his own existence.

Dr. Broun replies:

Thanks for your reply. I did not
read your piece on skepticism as such but was picking up on your
title of a skeptic's dictionary.

In fact, I wrote part of my PhD
thesis on Hume's theory of personal identity. He maintained that
the self was simply a series of impressions and that he could
find no underlying substance.

reply: Yes, which is not the same
as denying his own existence. He didn't deny that his
perceptions and memories existed, but he did deny that he
perceived anything in addition to those perceptions, such as a
soul or mind or immaterial substance. He also, following Locke,
argued that he wasn't a materialist in the sense that something
called a material substance exists above and beyond the
perceptions of qualities such as solidity and color. I agree
with Hume on the question of substances.

Sadly the fields of religion and
the paranormal have been shot through with fraud, and this has
discredited what is, in my view, a perfectly valid and
scientific field of endeavour - to see if there are repeatable
experimental results for (so-called) psychic and religious
phenomena. Although there has not been, to my knowledge, any
incontrovertible scientifically established evidence for the
existence of such phenomena, it is nonetheless a valid field of
research, due to two reasons:

1. The vast quantities of
anecdotal evidence 2. The often overlooked fact that many of the
reductionist explanations - such as confirmation bias, placebo
effect, mass hysteria, hypnosis, etc., etc., do implicitly
acknowledge that mind or consciousness has some power with
respect to the material realm, and that the explanations often
advanced by advocates of "psychic" and "religious" phenomena are
often more "materialist" (e.g. postulating hidden dimensions,
light-energy pathways in the physiology, aliens, etc etc) than
the reductionist explanations! There is a kind of irony here
which is often overlooked. So when I say that you are a
materialist reductionist, I am being inaccurate too - I actually
think that your position is closer to what philosophers term
"naive realism" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naïve_realism , the
big problem with which is that it has no coherent underlying
theoretical underpinning. It seems to be more of an emotional
reaction to things that do not fall within a certain range of
common everyday assumptions of our contemporary western society.

With Regards

Alasdair

reply: I don't know why you are
bringing up the issue of the validity of parapsychology here. If
you nose around my site a bit more, you will find that I have
taken very seriously the claims of parapsychologists, have read
many of their scientific studies, and have gone overboard to try
to find something of merit in what they do. Look
here,
here,
here, and
here, for a start. It is true that there has been a good
deal of fraud in parapsychology, but so has there been fraud in
other sciences as well.
I
discuss this issue in detail because there are implications
that apply specifically to parapsychology.

When I studied philosophy, naive
realism was the "what you see is what there is" school of
thought, that our perceptions are representations of what
actually exists external to our mind. That's not a view I hold,
but my view on perception (which is pretty similar to Hume's and
is called representational realism in the article you link to)
has no significance for most of what I have written about. What
I mean by that is that the arguments I've made and the
conclusions I've drawn don't stand or fall on whether
representational realism is correct.

_________

12 Aug 2000
Using your arguments challenging many of the subjects covered by your
website, I believe it is possible to cast doubt on the possibility of the
existence of humans.

I mean, how could any thinking entity believe that a planet just the
right distance from the sun, spinning at just the right speed, tilted at
just the right angle could support life. It's preposterous I tell you!
Furthermore, the idea that plankton floating in salty brine could end up
reading e-mail is really bizarre. And what is a "thought" anyway?
You can't see it. You can't measure it or take its' temperature. I don't
believe "thoughts" exist. What do you think?

dboothe

reply: I think a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

9 Aug 2000
In doing research on various skeptic martyrs on the net and elsewhere, I
have noticed that their personal education is often nowhere near what would
be required to make a reliable, let alone educated, opinion on a subject.
For example, your site covers everything from Bigfoot to Egypt to
Abductions. A hefty load, requiring a hefty knowledge base to back it up.
But quite frankly, philosophy just doesn't cut it. After all, my brother
also has gone the philosophy route because he found he could not pass
anything else.

It should be perfectly obvious, the pro-bigfoot people are usually
anthropologists while the pro-alien/Egypt people are geologists/Egyptologists
and so on. No Egyptologist seems to think it's appropriate to wager an
opinion on Bigfoot, and by the same obvious deduction, no anthropologist
ever wagers an opinion on Egypt. Nor should they, for it's not in their
area, and THEY at least know enough to not spout off about what they know
nothing about. I already know this falls on deaf ears, enough naked anger
leaks through your comments to let anyone realize you can't be bothered with
those who prove you wrong. Not posting any of the letters I've sent where
I've very effectively nailed you to the wall for your factual errors is a
dead give-away. But if you have ANY respect at all for an informed analysis,
here's one::: Your site suggests that you DO know enough about a 100
different fields of discipline to comment on all of them, despite the fact
that such knowledge would amount to several if not dozens of PhDs.

reply: Tell me, Bern, what kind of Ph.D. does one need to write such a
letter? What field is it that justifies the claim that the "personal
education" required for "reliable...educated" opinion on a
subject is professional degreed education? Did you learn this from your
brother?

I don't doubt that to you it is "perfectly obvious, the
pro-bigfoot people are usually anthropologists while the pro-alien/Egypt
people are geologists/Egyptologists and so on." It is also false. Real
anthropologists won't bother themselves with distractions like Bigfoot, and
real Egyptologists find pyramidiocy
ludicrously irrelevant.

I don't question your powers of deduction, Bern. But your assumptions
are asinine as well as false. I shudder to think that you might have learned
such things at school. "No Egyptologist seems to think it's appropriate
to wager an opinion on Bigfoot," you say. That may be true, but not for
the reason you assume. They don't wager opinions on Bigfoot because they
probably have no interest in Bigfoot. Egyptologists don't make claims in
nuclear physics because it is not their field, but if they don't make claims
about Bigfoot or God, it is not because only appropriate experts should make
such claims.

Another assumption you seem to make is that a person can't gain
knowledge or reasoning ability by reading or studying a subject outside of
an academic or professional environment. Bern, let me tell you something:
you don't need to have a Ph.D. in philosophy to make intelligent claims
about what is ethical or not. You don't need to be a Ph.D. in Egyptology to
make intelligent claims about aliens breeding with ancient peoples and
teaching them to build pyramids as radio towers or water pumps.

People like you don't make me angry, Bern. You irritate me with your
pompous attitude and you remind me that what I do often falls on deaf ears
for reasons beyond my control. I don't recall any of your previous letters,
but I usually ignore long, rambling letters that have no specific criticism
and I ignore letters I don't think would benefit anyone either by their
content or by my response. Now, perhaps you have "nailed me to the
wall" as you say, but I am sure there was some good reason why I was
unable to appreciate the brilliance and insight you must have shown. It was
probably because I only have one Ph.D. and it isn't in the appropriate
field.

In conclusion, I wonder if you could help me and my readers out by
informing us what kind of expert would be appropriate to comment
intelligently on the following claims by
Michael Menkin?

This request references reports of alien
abductions as reported by Bud Hopkins, David Jacobs and Raymond Fowler. I
made a device which may help people abducted by aliens as reported by the
above investigators. The device works by blocking alien telepathy and mind
control, I call my device a "thought screen helmet." My device
consists of a leather helmet lined with layers of special conductive
plastic, the same material used to prevent static electricity damage to
printed circuit boards. When worn over the head, I believe the device may
insulate an abductee from alien telepathic control. Its function is not
proven, I realize, but a shield for blocking alien telepathic control is
worth trying.

To date I have one abductee trying my device.
He has not had any memorable alien contact for three months so the device
may work. I am still working with this person and hope to confirm its
operation. I am trying to get other abductees to try the device to confirm
its operation. My "thought screen helmet" cannot be tested in a
laboratory. The only way to test it is for an abductee to wear it for a
period of time and determine if the telepathic control of aliens is
blocked or neutralized. If the "thought screen helmet" works it
will minimize alien activity with a person and allow that person to resist
aliens.

If I cannot verify the function of my current
"thought screen helmet" configuration, I plan to test different
materials to find one that does work. If your organization can put me in
contact with the kind of abductee described by Jacobs and Hopkins who is
interested in trying the device, I will mail it to them for free,
worldwide. There are no catches. It's available to any serious abductee
who wants to test if for free, anywhere in the world. Several size
"thought screen helmets" are available.*

My guess is that the appropriate expert would be
your local hardware store manager, but I could be wrong.

10 Aug 2000
Your local hardware store manager is unlikely to be a highly degreed
person, so I have to disagree that he/she would be an appropriate expert
to comment on the hat. Having seen picture of the hat at Michael Menkin's
site, I think that a comment by a fashion designer would be more
appropriate.

Or since the idea for the hat originated from a Science Fiction
novel, perhaps the "Aids is a Conspiracy" Science Fiction author
James Hogan would be appropriate.Tim B

13 Aug 2000
Actually, you do not need to go the high-tech (and no doubt expensive)
route that Mr. Menkin has in order to shield your mind from alien
influences.

Minor league baseball caps serve the same purpose. I have a small
collection of them, and I wear them often. I am able to state that I have
never been under any sort of alien mind control while wearing such a cap.

I don't know if major league caps perform the same function. Next
time I go to a game I'll buy one and see if I notice any alien influences.Alex Bensky

"In doing research on various skeptic martyrs on the net and
elsewhere, I have noticed that their personal education is often nowhere
near what would be required to make a reliable, let alone educated,
opinion on a subject."

When - if ever - have institutions of "higher education"
held a monopoly on knowledge? As someone who considers myself
self-educated and generally quite knowledgeable on many subjects, I must
respond; how arrogant! Look, you either agree or disagree. There's no need
to insult, or attempt to belittle . . . or to bore for that matter. Make
your point and get on [over] with it.Dennis G

Bern Finnigan replies:

14 Aug 2000

Another commonality between all skeptic messiahs I have researched is
their LACK of research towards contrary views. Such skeptical talking heads
on any number of paranormal television shows can have their entire thought
process summed up with: "My opponent has expert testimony, but I have a
quippy one-liner, therefore I'm right. Oh, I have a life too."

The sole exception would be Carl Sagan, who in his book "Broca's
Brain" dedicated no less than 56 pages to a dissection of the
"aliens and Moses" hypothesis of Dr. Velikosky, wherein Dr. Sagan
used natural laws of physics, chemistry and mathematics to demonstrate the
impossibility of the unusual ideas. Such a qualified disproval, is of
course, the exception in your chosen hobby.

Sticking with the example of Bigfoot (as
we both live in his alleged stomping ground, pun intended), you said the
utterly misinformed statement: "Real anthropologists won't bother
themselves with distractions like Bigfoot." The conceit and lack of
objectivity here is obvious. I can't help but wonder the criteria that a
philosophy PhD sees fit to impose on a field that has nothing to do with
philosophy. Heaven forbid letting anthropologists be autonomous in their own
field. I suppose by "Real" you mean "agrees with me",
and I'll let the ridiculousness of that speak for itself. Regardless, you're
wrong. Anthropologist Dr. Grover
Krantz PhD. of Washington State University has been studying the
phenomenon since the sixties, and I do believe he qualifies as
"real": tenured position, teaches graduate level courses,
publishes papers including a few books. Sound good? Except he has the
audacity to actually explore the situation before making a irrational
proclamation based on the statue quo. He publishes articles on his findings
based on the known rules of anatomy and primate locomotion and other silly
new-age fantasies. His finest achievement: a book where he discusses all
known evidence and subjects it all to scientific rules, AND I might add,
without a single one of those pesky unreliable testimonials. (Big
Footprints, look for it on Amazon). [The title has been changed to Bigfoot
Sasquatch : Evidence]
He makes a case for the creature using the available physical evidence
(footprints) and the best film of the alleged creature, the 1967 Patterson
footage. He puts them all to the test of known rules of vertebrates that
supposedly all earthly creatures must obey no matter how hairy they are:
skeletal anatomy, weight distribution, muscular formation, etc. He should be
quite qualified, after all that's his job to know those things, and that's
what he has been teaching for 30 years. He concluded that the 1967 creature
could not have possibly been a man in a suit. His book is full of all of his
mathematical calculations and rational deductions that anybody can
double-check to their hearts content. He concealed nothing. So, if Dr.
Krantz says its a real monster by using mathematics, if anyone has a
complaint with him the logical recourse would be to counter him by using
mathematics.

Unfortunately, just saying "It looks fake to me" comes in a
distant second in the reliability department, and is an insult to the
accepted procedure of the scientific method. If you do not accept the
findings of a professional merely because he supports the creature, and then
you deserve to be irritated, and even a PhD. in basket weaving should
recognize the validity of the scientific method over a layman knee-jerk
reaction.

Now for completeness sake, I will tell you where you can find
monster-maker John Chambers directly quoted denial that he had nothing to do
with the Patterson monster: The Fortean Times, issue of February 1998, pg
48.

That will make it the 3rd time I've sent you that information. If you
want to believe the movie was a fake SO badly, give me your address and I'll
send you a copy of the whole article. My pleasure.

Bern Finnigan

reply: Well, Bern, I guess this is where you
think you have "nailed me to the wall" with your evidence and
arguments. I'm afraid you're not very convincing, however. I can't deny that
Krantz has a Ph.D. and teaches anthropology at Washington State any more
than I could deny that alien abduction advocate John Mack is an M.D. and a
psychiatrist who teaches at Harvard. I don't think you should deny, however,
that both are considered quite odd by their colleagues. Be that as it may.
Krantz is considered heroic by some because he did what many would have
thought was professional suicide when he devoted his scholarly talents to
investigating Bigfoot. He is still the odd man out, regardless of his
credentials. You will not find mainstream anthropology textbooks or classes
that take seriously the study of Bigfoot, just as you will not find
standard texts in psychiatry giving advice on how to treat patients who have
been abducted by aliens. (I don't doubt that you can find a book or a
teacher that takes seriously just about every topic I've debunked.) I've
never met Krantz, but he has some odd ideas. For example, according to the Fortean
Times, Dr. Krantz advocates a hunt-and-kill-a-Bigfoot mission. Now, I'll
say that's true scientific devotion, a willingness to kill in the name of
finding the truth. I only bring this up because I have a hunch
that if Bigfoot exists, the creature would qualify for listing as an
endangered species.

What would you do, Bern, if someone pointed out
to you another Ph.D. in anthropology who thinks Krantz, while building a
strong but selective case, has failed to prove his point? Krantz, by the
way, is not an expert on films as far as I know. I thought you required that
nobody speak outside of their own field of expertise? By the way, how do you
know this? Is it common sense? Do you have a Ph.D. in common sense, Bern?
(You know, the only reason common sense is so common is because it often doesn't
make much sense.)

Do you really accept Krantz's response that
Bigfoot is "shy and nocturnal" to typical criticisms, such as
those below from my entry on Bigfoot?

There are no bones, no scat, no artifacts, no dead bodies, no mothers
with babies, no adolescents, no explanation for how a species likely to be
communal has never been seen in family or group activity, no evidence that
any individual, much less a community of such creatures, dwells anywhere
near all the "sightings," etc.

This shy and nocturnal animal has been spotted in broad daylight
hundreds of times, if the testimonials are to be believed. Are the creatures
so shy that they pick up their scat and hide it? Does the community live
underground or in caves no human has ever found? Maybe they live in the Hollow
Earth? (Ooops, sorry. I forgot that you don't like one-liners or quips.
They help me keep my sanity when dealing with humorless doubledigits.) Not one baby or adolescent spotted in all these years? No
evidence of habitation? What are the mathematical probabilities of such a
species surviving for hundreds of thousands of years without a single shred
of direct physical evidence?

Finally, the issue regarding costume-maker
Chambers is a side issue I've addressed
before.

reply: I have looked at your site and read some of the entries. However, I
don't see what any of it has to do with skepticism or Skepticism (see my entry on the
topic for the distinction <philosophical Skepticism>.

The members of your first group of "skeptics" (people who made bad
military decisions) seem to share in common only two things: they were close-minded and
their preconceptions turned out to be wrong. If one defines a skeptic as one who is
closedminded and turns out to be wrong, then examples of skeptics and non-skeptics will
fill up a very long list, indeed. Neville Chamberlain, for example, is one I would
characterize as gullible and guided by wishful thinking. To call Chamberlain a skeptic
seems silly.

Your medical mistakes list seems also to be a list of people who share these
same two characteristics of being hidebound and wrong. Again, one could find both skeptics
and non-skeptics to add to this list.

You head your page with the following "The web has plentiful sites by
skeptics - people who try and critically analyze the mass of nonsense loose in our
society. Skeptics usually find themselves in the position of saying something is not true
- that there is not enough evidence for something."

By defining skeptics in this way, you make everyone a skeptic who has analyzed
an issue, taken a position against that issue on the grounds that there is not enough
evidence to support it, and then turned out to be wrong. Such a broad definition would
include many strange bedfellows in its denotation. You are, of course, free to use words
any way you see fit, but I wonder about the utility of defining 'skeptic' in a way that
would include Richard Nixon and George Patton and Joan of Arc.

Mr. Cohen replies:

I will change the title of my website, perhaps to "The
anti-Closed Mind" Website.Gordon

09 Nov 1998
Thanks for providing the Skeptic's Dictionary, which is almost unique on the Web in being
interesting, well-judged, well written and well researched...I just wanted to raise a
couple of issues concerning your account of Philosophical skepticism and your alignment of
yourself within that movement I'll be as concise as I can.

You say (I think!) that modern skeptics, by and large, accept that certain
knowledge is impossible (at least outside the fields of logic and mathematics) but accept
that empirical or sensory evidence can confer some degree of probability, or confirmation,
on theoretical claims; and that the distinguishing quality of a contemporary skeptic is a
sort of healthy refusal to believe theoretical claims unless supported in this way by
properly conducted empirical tests, coupled with an unwillingness ever to regard such
claims as finally decided for once and for all.

reply: No, I say that one tradition of philosophical skepticism has defended
probabilism and the tentative nature of empirical knowledge. This distinction is a very
old one. Accepting probabilism does not make one "modern" in any sense of the
word.

It seems to me that this, while probably a position which is extremely and
justifiably common among 20th century philosophers and scientists, is not a skeptical one,
since it is actually called into question by some of the most important skeptical
arguments. The point of Hume's skepticism about induction, for instance, is not merely
that it demolishes claims to dogmatic certainty, but that it calls into question our right
to claim that any amount of empirical data makes any theoretical claim
any more
probable than its contrary. Similarly, Descartes' "evil demon" argument, if it
works, shows that sense data (appearances) is consistent both with our ordinary scientific
world-view and with a completely different set of theoretical claims about the way the
world is, and cannot therefore provide any evidence, even of a probabilistic nature,
either way.

reply: Hume's skepticism is very complex, but generally he is sympathetic to
probabilism. He rejects metaphysics as a waste of time, but not math and science. He
certainly does not advocate the notion that one scientific theory is always as good as any
other. Descartes, on the other hand, had no interest in probabilism. Philosophical
rationalists demand absolute certainty. I take it you do not think Descartes disposed of
the Evil Demon hypothesis adequately. Metaphysical possibilities, such as that we are all
dreaming or that we are all atoms in a universal being or that we are all being constantly
deceived about fundamental matters of perception and mathematics by an Evil Demon are not
denied by skeptics. Descartes was not a skeptic, so I don't know what your point in noting
that he believed that if the Evil Demon hypothesis were not disposed of then any empirical
theory would be as good as any other.

The view that the scientific or empirical method is the only trustworthy one, and
that while it cannot yield certainty it can confer probability on theoretical claims,
seems to me not to be a skeptical one, but closer to what has traditionally been called
"pragmatism" or "fallibilism" (in which I would include, for instance,
the views of philosophers such as Dewey, most Bayesians, and many modern philosophers of
science). Unless accompanied by a satisfactory refutation of Humean and Cartesian
skepticism, it remains a dogmatic view. To me at least, the most valuable 20th century
work in the philosophy of science has been done by those philosophers (such as Popper and,
in particular, Quine) who accept the correctness of Hume's argument but try nonetheless to
come up with an account of why it is rational to pursue scientific, empirical inquiry. In
the absence of a plausible refutation of Hume, the idea of constructing a philosophy of
science which makes no appeal to any positive concept of confirmation or justification
seems like the natural way to develop, since Hume's argument appears to undermine these
concepts fatally. It might, therefore, be appropriate to call Quine and Popper skeptics,
since both deny that empirical evidence can ever confirm a theoretical claim. The view
that empirical data can confer any non-zero degree of probability on a hypothesis, by
contrast, strikes me as quite anti-skeptical, since most skeptical arguments are just as
effective against claims to have even weak confirmation of a hypothesis as they are
against claims to certainty. skeptical doubts apply equally to scientific claims and to
the claims of New Age therapists, proponents of the paranormal etc. The difference is that
there are, as your site ably demonstrates, additional reasons to doubt the latter - you
don't have to be a skeptic, in any traditional philosophical sense.

Hope that all sounded coherent.Sam Inglis
U.K.

reply: It's coherent, but wrong. Popper does not say that no empirical evidence
can ever confirm a theoretical claim. He says that no amount of confirmation of an
empirical theory can prove the theory is true. He also used 'probability' in a
mathematical sense when he claims that all scientific theories have zero probability
(because no matter how many tests have been done, there are an infinite number left to do
and any number divided by infinity equals zero). The ancient (and modern) skeptics who
defend probabilism are not talking about mathematical probability. They
are using the term in much the same way I would use it when I say "I probably left my
notebook in the office." They are not using it in the sense of "the probability
of a heads coming up on any given coin flip is 1 in 2."